The murder makes three, a ghoul enters a place of worship

The destroyed house served as a mark for what Proteus considered half the distance to his destination. He again grabbed a sack to empty its contents and use while he surveyed the level of his mana and the condition of his body, at this point almost every single bone was healed and his organs were, for the most part, functional. He had to admit that the speed of his recovery was beyond extraordinary. The mana had depleted to half the previous amount from all his toying with it from the previous night, he had thought that mana wouldn't be lost if he kept it close to his body, but that was wrong. It dissipated constantly as it was exposed to the atmosphere, and once it mixed with the air, unlike Ruthenia, he couldn't recall it back inside. He wasn't worried by it, eating some animal or the goblins he was going hunt was enough to restock it.

When he arrived at the village at the foot of the mountain he waved at a passing person and showed them the wooden table, the villager took him to meet a person who was holding a machete and wore leather armour. A scoff and an angry expression were the first exchanges the man made after he saw Proteus, probably because Proteus wore only some woollen clothes and didn't hold any type of weapon. To calm him down Proteus demonstrated the sharpness of his claws by using them to leave marks at a nearby rock.

Together, the man and Proteus ventured towards the location of the goblin nest, which was further up the stream. The goblins there were significantly more than he had fought before, gathered around a very thick tree, the small ones were playing and climbing on it and the larger ones had captured three large, teethed worms and were eating them.

Snap. Proteus looked over at the other man, who had stepped on a fallen branch and made sound, at the same time the goblins were startled and some started heading towards them. With their cover blown, Proteus and the man lept out from the bushes to clash with the green monsters.

The man, being significantly slower than Proteus was surprised when he dashed forward and instantly cut up the goblins. He had previously seen the Ghoul cleave deep marks on the rock, but he didn't exactly expect him to be able to kill this easily.

It felt incredible to move so fast that the world looked to slow down in comparison. With the wind blowing around his body and his acute senses to analyse the battleground Proteus pounced and struck a goblin, who's back was turned on him. His hand penetrated all the way to the other side of its body and his claws found a second mark in quick succession. The two that had initially reacted to the noise met fast, but painful ends, now fully alerted, the goblins armed themselves with wooden clubs and spears and ran towards the two enemies. The man bearing the machete had also killed one goblin and walked next to Proteus.

"You're good", he said, no longer underestimating the Ghoul's fighting prowess. Proteus smirked, his combat experience combined with the advanced strength and agility he had gained made him feel like he could do anything, to these monsters he was untouchable. Mana-enhanced, black claws ripped through the goblins' weapons and bodies, the machete easily penetrated their belies. The young goblins had moved behind a group of four adults for protection. Seeing how the goblins started to surround them the man kicked one away and shouted for Proteus to attack the children, it was logical, he moved past the goblins to his front, slid low on the side and attacked the group protecting the children. He killed the closest weapon wielders as fast as he could and inflicted wounds to the small ones to get the adults to focus on him.

As the goblins turned around to see their young being killed they were cut open by the machete, they had moved towards the young and so they had broken their formation. Open lacerations bleeding profusely from their backs, yet they still moved closer to protect their young, Proteus smiled at them feinting from blood loss. The blunt weapons were heavy for the goblins to swing and they didn't cause much damage, they made them slow and got them killed faster. Now only the goblins holding spears remained, their numbers having been greatly reduced and being wounded had driven them to despair, their fearful expressions made Proteus elated while he chased them down and killed them cruelly.

The rich smell of blood lingered everywhere on the redded grass.

Proteus was licking his claws clean after killing the last strangler when the other adventurer came forward to voice congratulations about their hunt. When he let down his guard by holstering his machete, Proteus narrowed his eyes and took the opportunity to deliver a heavy blow to the human's throat.

Confusion and fear kicked in, the man desperately put his hand on his neck and staggered backwards from the force of the attack. Proteus left him no time for retaliation, after he fell he used the goblin's crudely made weapons to instil even more injuries. He pierced the man multiple times with the spears and hit him with the clubs. He had to make it as convincing as possible that the goblins had killed him, while being careful not to actually finish him in order to be able to make the most out of his mana.

Libir had been an adventurer from the largest nearest village, he had also accepted the same job as Proteus and was waiting for more people to show up to hunt the goblins. His family were cooks, they prepared food for adventurers, guards and people who didn't have time to make meals, they were against him being in this profession. The occupation of adventurers was very profitable, but also risky, it entailed bargaining ones life for pay and occasionally having to resort to less than lawful actions to get to ones goal. Libir was just trying out his luck with being an adventurer, this was his third goblin hunt, after some months of working like this he discovered that he had a good affinity for this business. He had promised himself that he would not get too close to things he could not handle and so he stuck to the easier jobs as long as he didn't have a team that could work together for the more dangerous and more rewarding requests. Still, he had gotten plenty more money from the hunts than he would have made by selling foods.

More sounds of words and meanings popped up in his head, Proteus now thought he had a pretty good understanding of the language. He felt no remorse for murdering the man, he had no intention to justify himself, he did it all for his benefit and, after all, he enjoyed it too. Libir's abdomen, throat and legs were pierced with goblin spears and his body was full of bruises. This should serve as a good cover up for his cause of death. Proteus cut goblin ears, put them in his sack and took Libir's body as well.

Back at the town the guard, still the same man, was shaken when he saw Libir's body.

"Show me your sign"

Proteus did as he was asked. Some tears formed on the man's eyes, making them more reflective.

"How many were there"

Proteus had counted the ears inside his bag, "twenty eight, with the young"

"Damn it, fuck!" The man let out an angered wail. The communities in these locations were small and closely positioned, there was no question that most people knew of or knew each other, but it was obvious that the guard and Libir had been close.

"Give me his body, I'll make sure he is taken to his family, you must be tired from carrying it all this way."

Proteus wasn't the least tired. An other man came down to have a look at the body and replace the front guard.

"Tell me, what were his last words?" The whimpering man asked.

"He said to tell his sister that he was sorry" Proteus took a generic guess at a dead man's words.

The guard reacted in a way that showed he had expected an answer like this one, his tears flowed faster.

With that Proteus left the guard and went to the Adventurer's Guild, where the receptionist was asleep on his desk.

"Excuse me, I came from the job to slay the goblins", the receptionist sat up on his chair, yawned and started counting the ears.

"Libir is dead"

"'S that so? I knew that greedy greenhorn was gonna get himself killed", the bearded man didn't try to mask his happiness as he said those words. "Anyway, here's your fourteen copper, now give me the tablet, ah, and if you don't mind, take out the pin from the map"

While Proteus walked to the map next to the task board and examined it again, the man took out a small, rose-coloured marble hemisphere, held it in one hand and spoke: "Le-par"

The stone started glowing. He waited for a second before he begun speaking into it.

"Joshua do you hear me?"

"Yeah, gimme a sec." A voice came out of the stone. "Okay what is it?"

"The goblins front of mountain, take out the job, oh and raise local casualties by one"

"Understood"

The stone stopped glowing.

"Is that your first time seeing a communication gem?" The man asked with a smile and one of his eye brows raised.

"Yes that's right, I came from behind the mountain we didn't have any of those."

"Ah yes, the outcast village there, only criminals would be forced to live in that isolated place with no proper way of communication, huh? Second generation born there I take it, you got lucky to get out of there before the incident." The man attempted to look saddened. "Well, most of them were criminals or their relatives. Anyway, can you read? I need help with some papers and every person that has come in here has refused, I'll pay you enough for a meal or two."

"Sorry, I don't know how to write other than a few words." Proteus tried to form a gentle smile to refuse the clearly overworked man.

"Could you tell me if there's anyone leaving for Wior?", which according to the map was located to the north beyond yet an other mountain, many villages and settlements were on the way there, becoming more common closer to the city.

"Sure, there's a merchant who will leave in two days, since the day's about to end we might as well say tomorrow, ahahaha."

"Well, the sun's not down yet, ah that reminds me, do you know if there's a cheap place to stay?"

"If you're looking for the bare minimum, you can stay upstairs since there's a bed free now, it's a copper for a night, the bed's the one furthest back on the right side."

Proteus gave the man a copper coin and went upstairs. He couldn't sleep, he felt no exhaustion, he couldn't exercise with mana in front of everybody there either. Deep in thought, he sorted through the memories he was branded with. Most of them were just ordinary things, how much the tax rate was, some writing that Libir knew, scattered details about the religion practised locally and the names of important people in the village. Apparently they found out that the village behind the mountain was attacked by the corruption two days ago, Libir's sister had insisted he didn't take the job closer to the mountain, but he didn't listen. It wasn't goblins that killed him, it was a dark Ghoul, so his sister's worry had been right.

As more people entered the dusty room in the upper floor of the Adventurers' Guild he overheard a group of three talking about how lucky they were to be ones to escort the merchant all the way to Wior. The way the adventurers' guild worked was not only for the eradication of monsters and dangerous animals, in truth it was the kind of place were odd jobs were gathered. Anything from fetch requests to cleaning and help with various things. Libir had taken up work as a helping hand with the transportation of wood for the winter between his quests to slay goblins. He knew how to read, but at most he could recognise thirty words, it wasn't enough to understand how to read and write at the same level of speech.

One of the three people who were the escorts of the merchant noticed that Proteus was awake and apologised for making noise, thinking they had woken him.

"It's alright. If you don't mind me asking, is there a chance I could come with you?"

"Sure, there's not many passengers this trip, but you're not receiving any part of the quest reward since we accepted it as a party, you look like you have combat experience so I'll put in a word with the merchant that way you won't have to pay the passenger fee.", answered the woman as she took off her leather boots. Seeing as how the other two men didn't say anything after that Proteus assumed she was the leader. Her weapon was a claymore, stylishly fashioned with metal roses above the hilt, her mannerisms looked elegant, in contrast to her rough appearance. She was a tall, big, dark-skinned woman, who wore thick pants, boots and a sleeveless shirt under her upper clothes. Her arms had scars, no doubt from combat and she had a tattoo of a rose on her right shoulder. She let her red hair down, something which might have turned on one of the men who's bed was next to hers because his cheeks turned red. After that she laughed loudly and punched his shoulder.

"Elijah, is smitten with that one. I'm Ussiah by the way. Nice to meet you." , said the man next to him, who removed his shirt, revealing his strong arms.

"Proteus.", they shook hands.

"As I was saying, Elijah doesn't know what to do with himself and fell for that woman-beast. She says she won't take a man who would lose against her in a duel and that scrawny guy has been trying extra hard to get her attention."

"And you!", She turned on the man who was talking with Proteus. "Don't go around telling a man's not-so-secret secret to a stranger!!" She attacked the bigger man with consecutive shoulder punches.

"Ey, you know I'm not scrawny, I'm lightweight to move faster than you bulls." The lighter-skinned of the three joined in on the fight and fell on top of the other man on the bed, which creaked like it was about to break

A shout came from the receptionist downstairs for them to shut up, after which they calmed down.

Proteus smiled, when was the last time he had been in such a lighthearted situation.

He looked at the trio's weapons, a claymore, two daggers, a bow and arrows and a longsword. They all had bags that were filled to the brim with supplies and vials that contained a yellow liquid in slots on the sides. Their clothes were better looking for battle, they had thick leather pieces on the shoulders, elbows, knees and shins and looked more durable than the type Proteus was wearing.

"Ah, now that I got a good look at you, which Therion race are you? Cat? I don't remember many cat people having purple eyes." Elijah mentioned after he was done pinning Ussiah on the bed.

"Purple eyes.., ah, I don't know, my mother is human."

'Purple eyes, now that he mentioned it, I do feel my mana coursing through my pupils more now that I am a dark ghoul.' He looked down in thought.

The next day Proteus roamed around the village to the places he didn't go before. He bought a backpack and clothes like the ones the other adventurers had and a short, curved blade. This reduced his funds to three silver and some copper. His next destination was the church, it was really important to learn more about the religion of these people in order to understand them better.

The inside was decorated with wooden sculptures on the columns, bathed in the light that passed through the coloured glass which was on its windows. There was an altar with pieces of stone that formed a triangle above it and a woman who was reading from the book placed on it. She read some passages, and said other's by heart. The psalm was a pleasant one, mostly due to her melodic voice and intricate attenuation. She had her eyes shut for the most part, although after she opened them and saw Proteus she became nervous and stopped.

The warm, green and yellow light became lower before everything was enveloped in darkness. A sickly and menacing presence froze Proteus in place.